Lynda Fay Braun will tell you right away, though she loves what modern technology has brought to the creative world, she is a painter at heart. The tactile feel of the brush against the painting surface moves and inspires her. She works from a garage studio off Taylor Road in Naples. Natural light pours in from roll up doors at either end.
Always inspired by her surroundings, Braun has lived in beautiful locations. She moved from New York to Southwest Florida in 1998 and to New Mexico in 2005. She spent eight years in Santa Fe, absorbing the stunning natural surroundings and taking thousands of photos. Living in Naples now, she keeps her camera nearby. She’s been fascinated by images of water. When she works with them in Photoshop, she simplifies the image, looking for the basic outlines and patterns on the surface. The finished result often has a topographical, outlined appearance.
“I’m reducing the image to the primary elements to find composition, balance and logic in nature. I see it as the beauty and truth in nature that the computer is distilling. Just as there is an endless pattern on the earth’s surface, that pattern is for me, a way into endless, meaningful abstract possibilities.”
Raised in upstate New York, Lynda Braun spent her early years between the rugged environment of the Adirondacks and the museums of New York City. A natural attraction toward the ineffable combined with an affinity for nature and an independent spirit compelled Braun to seek a life in art.
Braun attended Boston Museum School of Art and Cooper Union School of Art, New York City; receiving an MFA in Painting from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY in 1973. As part of her assistantship at Cornell, she hosted a visit from Agnes Martin, a relationship which began a mentorship that lasted over 25 years until Martin’s death.
Her work has been exhibited in Santa Fe at the Center for Contemporary Art; Zane-Bennet and Linda Durham Contemporary Art Gallery.
Museum exhibitions that Braun’s work has been included in are the Tabik Museum, Vienna, Austria; Johnson Museum of Art in Ithaca, NY, and the Empire State Museum in Albany, NY. University exhibits include a one-person show at FGCU and the Sibley Gallery at Cornell University. Brawn also has mentored art majors with the FGCU Internship program and continues to teach on occasion at the von Liebig Art Center in Naples, Florida.
Braun is active with the Naples Art Association as an instructor and exhibiting artist. Braun will also share a free workshop presentation on Facebook Marketing for artists as part of ART Connects in the fall. She is the featured artist for the Edison State College Collier Campus exhibition, on view through Apr. 30, 2014.
Naples Art Association 